Unfair grading practices

[devildoc2]

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I am attending an elite (top 5) med school.

The way our grading works is we have to be within 2 standard deviations of the class average in order to pass.

My probelm is as follows.

The people at my school are ****ING INSANELY SMART! The class average is regularly at the 90th percentile and the SD is only 5 points or so.

that means if I get an 80 on the exam (i.e. answer 80% of the questions right) I FAILED the exam and will FAIL OUT OF MED SCHOOL!

This seems ridiculous to me. I study, but I dont study 24/7 like my classmates do.

I think this is unfair, and they should have a 2 tier system.

I have mastered 80% of the material, that should be enough to pass.

 

[Rendar5]

well, that's what u get for going to such a school. but I figure if u got in, then u should be able to do well enough to pass.

 

[tigershark]

How can the average be 90th percentile? Are you talking about shelf exams or what?

 

[devildoc2]

How can the average be 90th percentile? Are you talking about shelf exams or what?

No I mean the average is 90% of the total possible points.

So if the exam has 100 total points, the AVERAGE score is 90 out of 100

 

[beanbean]

Some background.....

7/2003 Hallelujah! Hallelujah! A second lease on med school! (The OP vows to graduate in the top 10% of the class if given a second chance after failing first year)

4/2005 How do I beat out IMGs for a no-name suburban IM slot? (the OP failed second year and is concerned about matching into IM)

Perhaps you need to evaluate if medicine is the right career for you.

 

[YouDontKnowJack]

suck it up.

either the tests are really easy, and you're not mastering the material...... or i dunno.

I don't know of many schools that have test averages in the 90's. For me, the harder the school, the lower the test averages.

If your grades are determined solely by the class average, it shouldn't matter if the average is 50% or 60% or whatever. Your teachers should make your tests much much much much harder, just to get a better spread.

90% test average is ridiculous.

 

[fuegorama]

Some background.....

7/2003 Hallelujah! Hallelujah! A second lease on med school! (The OP vows to graduate in the top 10% of the class if given a second chance after failing first year)

4/2005 How do I beat out IMGs for a no-name suburban IM slot? (the OP failed second year and is concerned about matching into IM)

Perhaps you need to evaluate if medicine is the right career for you.

Good call Bean. I recall reading these bizarre tales last year.

Perhaps the OP needs to consider if therapy for his delusional mania is the right course.

 

[erin682]

I have to say while that grading system does suck you had the opportunity to find out about that system before you matriculated there. You made choices and now you have to deal with the consequences of those choices. If you got into a top 5 school you clearly could have gotten into another school that had a different system.

 

[4 Ever]

Some background.....

7/2003 Hallelujah! Hallelujah! A second lease on med school! (The OP vows to graduate in the top 10% of the class if given a second chance after failing first year)

4/2005 How do I beat out IMGs for a no-name suburban IM slot? (the OP failed second year and is concerned about matching into IM)

Perhaps you need to evaluate if medicine is the right career for you.

wow... i am at a lost of words for just how good this ownage is so I will just insert a picture

just to get this timeline right:

7-2003 -- OP gets 2nd chance to repeat the first year after failing

7-2004 (1 year later)-- OP *should* have completed the first year and entered 2nd year (also vowed to study for 2nd year material during the summer to help with the top 10% goal)

4-2005 (9 months later)-- OP states he was repeating the 2nd year? (i thought it was the first year?) and has yet to take the boards

10-2005 (6 months later) -- OP is complaining about kids in his class studying all the time so are these shelves that he's taking during rotations? is he repeating 2nd year again also? whats the deal

 

[blue_feiyan]

wow...we had a 90% on our first exam which was upper back and thorax and that was about it..the average has gone down since

 

[quideam]

My school's test averages are really high also - mid- to high 80's almost all the time, but I think our standard deviations are higher. Anyway, that does suck - I know what you mean about there being a lot of really intense people at a top school (I go to one myself), but the only advice I can give you is just to study harder. It's not really fair, but if you got in you're smart enough to at least pass. Just study more, or maybe study differently.

Q

 

[drguy22]

our avg for all of our classes is close to 80%...90% avg is ridiculously high...

 

[Fif the Great]

90% is outrageous. Either a) the tests are easy, or b) the tests are really easy.

I don't believe it personally, especially since you've fished with this subject before.

 

[cytoskelement]

2 SD from mean contains 95% of data. that means 5% outside of 2 SD. Given your class' high mean, i'd infer that at least half of that 5% (2.5%) are above and thus 2.5% are below. so, by your definition, only 2.5% of the class fails an exam. sounds about right.

 

[Fif the Great]

2 SD from mean contains 95% of data. that means 5% outside of 2 SD. Given your class' high mean, i'd infer that at least half of that 5% (2.5%) are above and thus 2.5% are below. so, by your definition, only 2.5% of the class fails an exam. sounds about right.

This is correct but I think the overlying point is that the supposed average of the OP's class exams is 90% with a SD of 5, meaning that if you score below an 80%, you fail. 79% is sort of high as a cutoff, but at WVU, any score below a 75% (even a 74.99%) is a counted as failing, so it's not like an 80% cutoff is craaazy.

Now if the average was a 92% with a SD of 3 or so, then yeah, that's pretty ridiculous.

 

[hakksar]

90% is outrageous. Either a) the tests are easy, or b) the tests are really easy.

I don't believe it personally, especially since you've fished with this subject before.

My class routinely averages at about 90% on exams (this year we averaged 92% on the first pharm exam, 89.7% on 1st Micro exam, and ~90% on the first immuno exam). I don't feel that our exams are that easy but that is hard to prove . . . however we have firm cut-offs for failing and honors (usually either 75% or 70% for failing and 90% or92% for honors) so no one is guaranteed to fail as you will when you set limits for failing like 2 standard deviations below the mean.

 

[sacrament]

After dealing with the grading scheme in place for clinical rotations, I look back fondly on the pre-clinical grading system as a paradigm of fairness and equity.

 

[MacGyver]

I dont buy this logic about 90% being indicative of an easy test.

ALL tests are easy if people spend 24 hours a day, 7 days a weeek studying.

Under those circumstances, the term "easy test" is irrelevant.

I could take a first year class of med students, and give them a class in quantum mechanics that involves advanced level calculus that they've never seen before.

If they study all day, every day for it, they are going to ace that test regardless of the difficulty level

 

[ocean11]

I am a second year Rosalind Franklin/CMS student and the students in my class are really smart! the class averages in my year are really high as well for tough exams. I dont' think it matters if you go to a 'top 5%' or top 1% university --> but if you go to ANY US medical school chances are the curriculum will be HARD! so work hard, do your best and dont' rely on the class for a curve. Try to get a solid A, or high pass without the curve and then you won't be upset if there isn't any......

Ocean11

 

[Fif the Great]

I can buy it, perhaps I was a bit rash to judge 90% as being indicative of an easy test. My class routinely scores in the mid to upper 80s so I suppose a 90 average isn't unattainable.

MacGyver, your post made a lot of sense, I stand corrected.

 

[tigershark]

I dont buy this logic about 90% being indicative of an easy test.

ALL tests are easy if people spend 24 hours a day, 7 days a weeek studying.

Under those circumstances, the term "easy test" is irrelevant.

I could take a first year class of med students, and give them a class in quantum mechanics that involves advanced level calculus that they've never seen before.

If they study all day, every day for it, they are going to ace that test regardless of the difficulty level

What a bunch of crap....the arrogance and ignorance of your post is astounding.

There are plenty of people that nearly do study 24/7 for tests such as step1 and couldnt pass if their life depended on it.

A test with such a high average and small SD indicates that the test is not of sufficient depth and/or breadth to differentiate the class...you might as well not give the test at all unless it is being used as a simple pass/fail indicator.

 

[Flopotomist]

So based on your previous post when you were put on probation unless you scored in the top 10% (weird post) does this mean that you are now going to be expelled?

 

[gary5]

Start studying 24/7, from awake until asleep, whatever it takes. Even top 20 schools will kick your butt to the curb if you don't perform. Welcome to med school.

 

[Paws]

Some of our professors use exam questions that they save in a bank and they seem to have a system where they are able to gauge by the exam results just how "good" the questions were. In other words, those people who tended to get high scores also tended to get certain difficult questions right, and there were questions that everyone got or whatever. Somehow they have a tracking calculating program that can lay out the data on the questions. This way they can balance the exams with a sprinkling of hard, not so hard and sort of easy questions and then they get a decent spread on the averages and the exam results also seem to show pretty well who studied and knew the material and who did not.

Does this all work? I dunno really. I am not seeing too many 90's on my own exams and sometimes I am just praying it will add up to a 70. So, I think med school is hard no matter how you slice it. Also, these two years are nothing compared to the more subjective grades in clinical rotations ...

 

[fun8stuff]

I am attending an elite (top 5) med school.

The way our grading works is we have to be within 2 standard deviations of the class average in order to pass.

My probelm is as follows.

The people at my school are ****ING INSANELY SMART! The class average is regularly at the 90th percentile and the SD is only 5 points or so.

that means if I get an 80 on the exam (i.e. answer 80% of the questions right) I FAILED the exam and will FAIL OUT OF MED SCHOOL!

This seems ridiculous to me. I study, but I dont study 24/7 like my classmates do.

I think this is unfair, and they should have a 2 tier system.

I have mastered 80% of the material, that should be enough to pass.

I am really wondering if the OP even understands their school's grading system. At my school, and at 3 other schools I know of, that have grading systems like this there is a guarentee pass rate set. This way, even if the average is high with a small SD, you still pass. 75% is our guarentee pass. It seems strange that their school would not have a similar rule...

 

[davvid2700]

hey

I agree it may be unfair.. but at least its halfway objective.. wait until you start getting narratives as evaluations.. saying you really didnt seem that interested in rounding for 3 hours straight.. or when you are in residency or better yet.. when you are an attending..